Skeptical on AAPL

If you want innovation I suggest you wait until after the intel transition is complete. Ostensibly the reason for the intel switch was that IBM chips just weren’t going to allow Apple to innovate. I don’t follow your logic as to why it is a bad idea for Apple to have switched to intel if lack of innovation is what your complaining about. Have you checked any of the new intel macs? Their significantly better on a performance basis than their predicessors. The performance has to be there first before you can have the innovation. Finally speaking of the ipod and lack of innovation , I guess you have missed the new ipod Nike collaboration for this is exactly the kind of innovation that will really improve athlete’s lives. If it’s good enough for Lance it’s good enogh for me. I know there they go those evil marketers at Apple , but if know one knows about your great innovation it doesn’t do anyone any good does it?

SJ repeatedly mentions that the Intel chips will get Apple what they want for their own coming innovation. They didn’t pick Intel for pure performance as so many short sighted geeks think. Apple has plans with the Intels and also got an amazing deal on them.

Secondly, OBV doesn’t take into account gaps/AH/PM trading and so misses the giant gap ups in AAPL recently. The only volume indicator that does is CMF which you should use. OBV is very misleading.

Re: AAPL chart analysis
by: tom2oc 05/30/06 02:32 pm
Msg: 839837 of 839839

Rick, thanks for posting this analysis. The author who seems to have an unbiased opinion is spot on on both the comments and the chart TA. Where are those truly new innovative products Mr. Showman marketing Jobs? Lots of longers here waiting for a new miracle line to replace the maturing and highly crowded ipod market. And running shoes ipods don’t count. Anyway will continue to ride it up and down intraday and without caring about funnymentals but long term I have a very good feeling where this thing is going and it ain’t up. Waiting for a retracement to resistance 72.50 to consider loading up on Jan ’08 50s puts.

Why don’t you compare Apple to Microsoft? If Apple isn’t innovative, then why has Microsoft been copying Mac windows since the 80″s. Compare Microsoft and Apple stock prices for the last three years? Didn’t your read that Piper Jaffery just reported latest analysis . . . outperform?
Mac people are fanatics? There are two great reasons: most innovative and best quality.

I must disagree with a few comments made in this post.
1. Not just a marketing company – Most everyone can agree that Apple one of the greatest innovators in the history of computers, and now portable music players. I think this point is self evident.
2. Apple running on x86 is something that Apple should have done decades ago. Remember when Apple’s stock jumped over 10% after Boot Camp was released?
3. OSX does not natively run on Dells or any other non-Apple hardware. There have been hacks but they are mostly convoluted and unstable. This is not a plausible alternative.
The one true competitor to Apple’s iPod now is MSFT+MTV. The question you must answer for yourself is whether current iPod users will be willing to give up their entire collection that they have invested in thus far, because PlayForSure surely won’t play on iPods or vice versa? Collectively, that’s over billions of dollars worth of songs and videos. I think not.
See http://sleeperstockblog.cheture.com/?p=6 for my blog on Apple from a few weeks ago.

I think the only value that article has is to dour people on the stock. I disagree with almost every point he made:

1. Apple not innovating.
Qua? Apple just moved it’s entire Mac platform to a new processor, not a small thing, and did so ahead of schedule, and from where I’m sitting, gracefully. They aren’t sitting back and keeping an out of date hardware platform and charging a premium for the case. They did that back in the early 90′s and got eaten for lunch. Industrial design? Best in the industry, but mostly because of the, dare I say it, innovative use of existing ideas. Widescreen displays, backlit keyboards, iLife editing, photo, music. It’s all there and continues to be improved. The next round of innovation is with the MacPro Tower. I’d withhold judgment on ‘innovation’ because each of Apple’s products is best in category, and not just best of category for a Mac, but best of category for ALL LAPTOPS. Because of…

2. Moving to Intel was a mistake.
Hmm. This author should probably talk to Mike and Jerry the creators of the most popular webcomic “Penny Arcade” who have made great fun of Apple’s little ‘island’ choice of processors. What happened the minute Apple switched to Intel? They BOTH bought iMac Intels, and featured them on the website. Why? Because Mac OS X was awesome, yes, but because they could dual boot. They’ve both said they work in Mac now most of the time, and switch to PC when they want to run something not available on the Mac. They aren’t the only ones, I got rid of my PC because I have both. Do I ever need to buy another PC as long as I’ve got my Intel Mac? Nope.

And who’s getting the hardware money? Apple.

It’s a dead simple thing to ask a consumer, “You want a computer that runs half of all the software available, or one that runs EVERYTHING?” Mistake? Hardly. Common sense. Think about the thing you’d want to buy. People who want the cheapest will always buy white box PC. Gateway is sure getting rich doing that. Oh wait… no they aren’t. But yeah, Dell is… what, they bought Alienware to increase their perception of ‘quality’? Oh right.

And back to point one, Innovating? What about 10.5 on the way later this year? Yeah, I’d hold off on that argument a bit more.

3. iTunes isn’t what people want.

He says” Oh and iTunes. It?s a decent service, but that market is getting more and more competitive as services like Rhapsody, Napster, allTunes (I personally use this one), etc, chip away at iTune?s marketshare. Good luck Apple. $1/song might have been appealing to users a few years ago, but in the tech world, times change really fast, and now people want dirt-cheap, non-DRM, flat-rate music downloads.”

Riiiiigggghhhht. What he is saying is this, “$1 a song? What people want is nearly free and unprotected music.” People have voted with their pocket books and flat rate downloads are not what people want, because a) to burn it to CD you have to pay MORE money, b) it doesn’t play on an iPod and c) people don’t have a sense of ‘ownership’ to the song. Even if someone figured out how to make it play on the iPod, do you think you’d want to be the person to explain to consumers that as soon as they stop paying $15 a month their entire music collection disappears? Please.

As for unprotected music for cheap from major music labels? Sure, I’d love to have a gallon of gasoline at fifty cents a gallon that I could borrow from my friend so it would run in BOTH our cars for the same price. I’m sure that business model would survive. What universe does this analyst live in? It has to cost enough to make money, but not so much or be so restrictive that it drives people back to piracy.

Let’s sum up this person’s entire article.

Apple hasn’t impressed me in the past three months, except for the MacBook which impressed me, but cost $200 more than it should. So I guess that I am still impressed, but I think the stock should still take a ding.

And this guy makes money writing this way? How can I get HIS job?

1. The migration from IBM to Intel chips was really easy for developers. It just requires replacing pieces of assembly code. That’s not innovation. They’re just becoming like everyone else who codes on the x86 architecture. Backlit keyboard? Widescreen LCD? That’s not innovation either. Those are just gimmicks. AAPL was an innovator when it brought the iPod to the market a few years ago. But for the last few quarters, AAPL hasn’t produced anything noteworthy.

2. This topic is a little harder to speculate about. The dualboot and “boot camp” feature of the Intel Macs is pretty clean. AAPL is definitley moving in the right direction by encouraging dualbooting. But why don’t I buy a white box PC and put OSX on it? Since OSX has now been ported to the x86 architecture, it is now at the mercy of millions of brilliant hackers who WILL give AAPL headaches. Piracy has never been that big of a problem for AAPL because you used to need a MAC to run OSX, and the piracy market is catered toward the PC user anyway. In fact, I read somewhere that OSX 10.4.4, which had AAPL’s patented countermeasures to prevent installation on PCs, was cracked in a matter of days.

3. iTunes is just doomed. Right now it has an advantage over all other services b/c the average American knows ONLY of iTunes. However, like I said, people are only getting more tech saavy, and they will soon discover the better services out there. The iTunes DRM policy is just stupid, and as seen with the iTunes controversy in France, iTunes’ DRM policies will continue to cause problems for AAPL. Go try alltunes.com for a few days, and tell me if you would still use iTunes.

I am still bearish on AAPL.

how are AAPl’s rivals going to steal share?

Apple has deep pockets, seasoned vets, and unmistakable brand equity. Im not endorsing the stock, but I don’t see the Apple ship getting shot down anytime soon, either.

-DJ

JWU,

Are you in High School?

allTunes is just a rebadged allofMP3. They sell songs for cheap without DRM but they do so without permission from the rights holders. The artists do not get paid.

Look my wife is Russian, and I like Russian culture, but piracy is piracy. Russia has compulsory licensing, but allTunes is not in business with the labels.

This is really idiotic. Why don’t you just steal music from bittorrent? allTunes is laughing at you for paying them to get music you could get just as legally (read illegally) on the P2P networks.

You think just because you are paying someone, and no the money does NOT go to the artists, you are being a good boy?

Again, are you in High School? Mind you I have nothing against High School students, or P2P, but don’t pretend allTunes is something it is not.

It’s legality is being debated right now. Under Russian law, it’s 100% legal. It doesn’t matter that the artists don’t get paid.

If allTunes really is illegal, then they’ll eventually get what they deserve.

In the meantime, what matters is that it is up and running, and posing a threat to iTunes.

seldom read so many factual errors and poorly substantiated opinions – this kind of post gives blogging a bad name – apple hasn’t innovated ??? ha ha ha ???

geez were you shown to be totally ill informed on AAPL…. i don’t know if anyone was farther off than you were in stock picking, or company picking, or technical picking or technology picking… is that alltunes even in business anymore?

It seems like a lot of you guys have questions about the stock market. I find http://www.stockniche.com to be a good place to ask questions and learn about investing.